王の神殿 Hokura no Ousama
by Iseki
Summary: Akari still visits the summit to pray to a god no one remembers. Post-AP.


_A/N: I'm shirking my responsibility with my other fics for another oneshot, but this has been a long time coming._

_I have not played Animal Parade but I've had a curiosity for the Harvest King since I first knew of him.I've also always harboured a great fascination with stories about Japanese gods and spirits, so this is a sort of meeting of two obsessions._

_This takes place on a mountain more like that in Tree of Tranquility's. It is a spiralling upward climb and at the King's summit there is a small roadside shrine. I didn't utilize a complete Shinto shrine layout since that seemed out of place in the westernized island setting, and frankly required a lot more work and research. This fic is only loosely based around this knowledge. I cut out the entrance to the Garmon Mines completely, assuming to place them elsewhere._

_These amendments are entirely necessary, so hopefully they will not put you off the story._

_I've read most of Ignis' script so I hope my depictions of him are agreeable however please feel free to inform me of any discrepancies in my writing._

* * *

Another day, another familiar step.

This is a story of habits: habits that are formed and never broken, habits that are rarely repaid, habits that tax the body and the heart. The good farmer Akari, seemingly a fan of such detrimental habits, climbed this mountain every day. Step by step, up and up, sometimes nearly vertical until she was scrabbling for a foothold. The mountain was unforgiving, neglected for years until the pass became overgrown. The mountain would leave a man for dead and disguise his body in its formidable leafy groves. Anyone who climbed the mountain was foolish.

And that made the good farmer Akari an honourable fool.

She liked to think it was part of her charm.

Akari, charmingly foolish and foolishly charming, approached each day with dusty knees and dirty-gloved hands; her every action mirrored her servitude. When night fell and she lie upon her shabby floorboards counting heartbeats, she couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't the island itself that she served.

The exhaustion was enough to make her weep.

"Hello," she called with little enthusiasm, "I'm here, come out come out wherever you are."

She disentangled herself from a root-like vine that had coiled around her boot during her climb and hastily smoothed her hair. The summit was quiet for a moment.

"Impertinent," came the everyday reply, "human," followed shortly after.

Akari only sighed. Sometimes she was 'woman' and other's merely 'you,' so to classify her by species didn't especially sting. She was after all, and he was not. It was what set them apart and the Harvest King was exactly the type of person, mortal or not, to point it out. His voice was all gravel and ferocity whatever he chose to say.

"I've brought you melon, today" she announced, peeling back the plastic cling wrap with all the flourish of a television presenter. He was still, one hand neatly tucked inside his sleeve and the other cupping the opposite elbow; a perfect vision of godliness. At length he nodded, pointing with his chin to the small stone shrine; a movement so minute that she might have missed it had she not been so well versed in his body language.

"Leave it," he thundered lowly.

"So I can mark that one off as another of your least favourites," she replied, not bothering to hide her disappointment. It would have been a fine idea actually- to record his preferences. It might free up some spare cash from higher shipping fees like these melons might have achieved, and save some feeling to boot.

Still, she thought, as she placed the slices of fruit at the altar and he strode in closer behind her to watch; this was surely necessary as well. A mountain god no matter how powerful was not in the position to be picky. Once the offering was carefully arranged she clapped her palms together, and bowed her head.

He stirred; it was the faintest swishing of robe and hair.

The devoted pray and the god listens.

"I cannot grant that."

Akari prayed harder.

"It is not a matter of asking differently."

Akari changed her angle.

"Your farm is as prosperous as it's going to be, do not waste my time."

"You might like it," she countered swiftly, breaking concentration and peering up at him impetuously.

"It is not a matter of like and dislike. I will not explain what is beyond your basic human comprehension."

Since the time of the bells Akari had found an incurable stubbornness in herself. She supposed it was what helped her succeed, and that made her all the more merciless. This streak showed its colours best when she was working, unfailing and inexhaustible until she was alone, but it was worse with the King. She would worship him, she would respect and fear him in the necessary measures, but she would never admit to being beneath him. It made her reckless.

"Sounds like a fancy way of saying you can't," she challenged.

His eyes were sharp, "_Will not_ is not _cannot._"

She collapsed in a pile, cross-legged and fuming; her palms pressed together in a fury and her prayers loud and insistent. She must have looked like a child that never got their way, but still refused to stop fighting. In the end he left her there. He might have been unable to escape the buzz of her wishes but they did not require him to observe her tantrum. He settled in his throne like a petulant beast, chin in hand and teeth clenching.

"Why do you return," He asked, "when I have already granted your request?" She'd long ago abandoned her prayers as a form of punishment and was instead nibbling on a spare slice of the melon observing the sky.

_It wasn't my request,_ she wanted to say. _It was simply something you and I were meant to do. _Instead she wiped her mouth of juice and replied with, "Because I should. Because you need me to."

The king huffed, shifting his weight from one side of the throne to the other. "I do not require such a thing."

"I can't take any chances," she pressed, focused on the melon, a small smile forming on her lips.

"You think highly of yourself."

"Not really," the smile grew and she turned it on him; foolish, charming. "I'm just the only one here."

* * *

The next day she did the climb she'd changed back into her spring and summer wear, her knees were still dirty but they bled where she'd stumbled. The king was strangely perturbed.

"You bleed so easily," he remarked, watching her wipe at the wound with a bit of moss.

"Well, I fell pretty hard," She seemed to be getting more dirt and debris into the cut than she was cleaning away, but before she could voice her frustration two large, white and pristine hands were brushing her away, pressing the broken skin back together. She winced, but he ignored it.

"How little it would take to kill you."

"Please don't say something so unlucky..." she chided.

Despite his infinite wisdom and godlike capabilities he did not heal her injury. Once it was clean he'd produced a bit of cloth and tied it around her leg like a gift-bow. The other knee which didn't bleed quite as profusely was left alone.

"You risk your short life to travel here."

"Oh, are you grateful?" she grinned, setting today's offering within the arch of the small shrine. Yesterday's melon had done a good job at disappearing; all that was left was the paper it'd sat on. Akari desperately wanted to ask if it'd been him or the sprites to dispatch it but something in the absolute straightness of his spine stayed her tongue.

His rocky shoulders hardly shrugged, "I am merely baffled by your reasons, once again."

Akari took a moment to brush away last year's stray leaves, if it wasn't quite so daunting she'd carry a few more of her tools up here and clean the whole place up. "What would happen if I didn't come?" He hardly took a breath before replying.

"The world would continue to spin on its axis, and time would endure as normal."

Had she not considered the likelihood of it being a capital sin she might have punched him.

"I think you would be lonely, and worse than that I think you might disappear."

"I am not some lowly spirit," he growled dangerously. Suddenly she was not squaring up against a man, but rather a force of nature itself. His eyes pierced, his words cut; his very shadow seemed alive.

"I have existed longer than you and precious villagers have known and understood history. You are a drop in the ocean while I am the tide.

Do not dare to judge me by your short-sighted human ideals. This earth would fade before I am destroyed, and while your mortal life might go forgotten, my presence would remain a stain on this space evermore; a reminder of greater times."

The mountain was still, deathly still as thought every creature that lived here was silenced until his breathing was the only sound. Akari swallowed hot tears and turned back to the altar. She clapped her hands together and she prayed. She didn't have the strength of will to punish him today; perhaps she'd spent too much time watering the fields under the high noon sun. She focused the last of her energy into two solid words until she was sure that he'd heard and then began the climb back down again.

"That sounds very lonely to me."

* * *

The goddess tree stood tall and abundant. On the higher branches blossom gave way to fruit, the likes of which Akari had never seen and could never hope to reach. They hung silently; shimmering and mysterious. If Finn had still been by her side she might've known that that was how the sprites were born.

She left the spring without disturbing any of the water's divine inhabitants.

* * *

"I've brought some bread." She called, stumbling a little while she brushed herself free of burrs. "I'm not the best at baking though, so it might be better as offering this time..."

On the summit of his mountain the King looked at her as though he'd seen something impossible. It was only for a second before his usual impassiveness closed in, but she'd caught it.

"Surprised?"

He shifted, but did not reward her with an answer. Akari forged ahead on her own.

"To be honest I wasn't sure that I would come." She brushed away the leaves at the altar, and folded her legs beneath her. "I had a lot of work to do and people to see, but then I made one loaf extra and I didn't want it to go to waste." She unwrapped the bread a produced a knife, scoring the thick crust and slicing through the soft flesh. She held it up to him in her open palm.

"Would you like to try it?"

He studied the bread for a moment then took it without a word, weighing it between his fingers. As he took a bite the sight seemed somehow ordinary and Akari watched with bated breath.

"It is unremarkable," he announced finally. Akari snorted with laughter.

"I appreciate your honesty, I guess." She cut the rest of the loaf and left it uncovered in front of the shrine. After a short once-over she stood again, and checked the security of her pocketed items. "Make sure the sprites get some," she added as an afterthought. She might not see them so well or so often anymore but she knew they were there.

The King only frowned, "No prayer today?"

"Yeah, well, I'm still kind of mad at you."

He deliberated. "But you are here."

"Mortals are so mysterious, aren't they?" She simpered.

He watched her, crimson gaze hot and seeking, "This is a punishment then."

Akari sputtered, feeling suddenly self-conscious. Her chin bobbed as her open mouth failed to produce adequate words. She observed him like a deer might observe the forests at the first sound of a predator. She had been hoping to punish him, she just hadn't expected the god to see through her so easily, and peek inside her girlish heart.

The King sighed brusquely.

"How meaningless."

Her blood quickly bubbled. "So?" she began blindly, "That's how we do things. It may not be right and it certainly isn't perfect, but this is what happens when we feel. We do stupid things and make rash decisions and in the end it somehow works out despite us..." Akari's eyes found her toes, the tips of her boots worn and dirty. His voice came closer.

"Another useless expenditure of energy; you humans burn so brightly and are extinguished almost immediately. If you used what you were given and spoke your intentions you would live that much longer."

"You say it like it's easy, like if we really wanted to we could ascend to godhood in a heartbeat, but that's just how it is. We live and we die and we don't even leave a mark, right?"

He was silent.

Akari wanted to spare them this awkwardness. "I have to go," she reported, the cheer returning to her tone however false. Her chin was lifted by his hand until there was nowhere else to look but the perfect expanse of his face and eyes that commanded her attention.

"You will not leave a mark on this world, what I said was true. Human history is expendable however cruel that truth may be. But through your actions and your words you leave another mark; the indelible mark upon other's hearts."

Although the 'you' he specified might have been said on behalf of all humankind Akari had an inexplicable confidence that he was speaking to her directly; that her trials and successes here would not be forgotten so easily. Perhaps her heroics would be undone one day, or covered up by the sands of time, but for now her mark remained.

In that moment the King had never seemed more like a god. He released her chin and crossed his arms again, waiting for her reply. When the words never came he turned away and her heart sank for the missed opportunity.

"This will carry you the next time you come," he said, his voice booming distinctly. He laid his hand on a tall stone she hadn't recognized. It was opaque in colour, exuding a faint light. "It might save you from the untimely death you so seek."

She moved towards it, prodding experimentally, "You mean it's like a portal?" The stone did not react. She peeked at the King again, "For me?"

"I would prefer you not share the privilege."

She smiled then hesitated, "Hey, I'm not seeking my death,"

"There is another at the base of the mountain. Please do not abuse my gift."

"Really, I'm not, if you think I enjoy climbing here every day then you're wrong,"

He ushered her toward the stone, "Go."

Akari sucked in a breath, readying her body for what may come. "Then...

I'll see you tomorrow."

As the teleporting stone worked its magic she could almost swear she had glanced a smile on his lips.

And then there was nothing.

* * *

_Please continue to watch over us._

_Please grant the island eternal prosperity._

_When you watch over the island please give us your blessing._

_If I can double my shipping profits in the next year, come down the mountain and share a drink on my porch._

_Be happy._

**"You might like it."**

* * *

_A/N: thank you for reading, please offer your thoughts :)_

_In case it was unclear, the final segment was Akari's prayers throughout the story. _

_I'm toying with the idea of a second chapter or a sequel containing more romantic elements, so let me know if you're interested._


End file.
